Hero-of-the-Month

April
2000

Rudolfo Montiel
and Teodoro Cabrera García

The
cases of Mexican environmental activists Rudolfo Montiel -- this
year's winner of the Goldman Foundation environmental prize --
and Teodoro Cabrera García reveal how US-imposed drug
prohibition has nothing to do with combatting drugs and instead
is used as a pretext to persecute free speech and political dissent.

Montiel and Cabrera were
detained by Mexican military troops on May 2, 1999, severely
tortured and forced to pose with marijuana plants and weapons
which they were then charged with possessing. But they are not
narco-traffickers, as the Goldman Foundation and Amnesty International
recently confirmed, declaring them prisoners of conscience. They
are ecological activists. The Narco News Bulletin is proud
to give them our first drug-war Hero-of-the-Month award because
-- despite the brutal tortures and injuries they have already
endured -- they have not backed down and continue fighting to
expose the truth.

Montiel, who donated the
$125,000 Goldman Foundation prize to the farming peasants of
his community, writes about the environmental destruction by
large landowners and loggers in his mountain region of Guerrero.
This, he writes, from his Iguala, Guerrero prison cell:

"When
there are trees on one ridge, and also on a neighboring ridge,
the clouds knock together and there is rainfall, but when one
ridge has no trees, the clouds just pass by and only one or two
drops fall, and as a result crops are lost, hurting the campesinos
and the professional people who eat the crops the campesinos
produce....

It is precisely
the destroyers of the forest, and not Montiel or Cabrera, who
are the region's drug traffickers. With the support of Mexican
armed forces and state police agencies, the large landowners
have formed armed paramilitary organizations to persecute peasants
and workers and to ensure the free flow not only of lumber and
other legal products, but also of poppy and marijuana for the
black market. This system of narco-caciques, or narco-bosses,
operates with impunity: the military, police and politicians
get their percentage of the illicit proceeds in exchange for
protection.

The official
protection of drug traffickers and repression against peaceful
and democratic citizen movements is carried out with the support
of the US government. It was US Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey
Davidow, after all, who came to the aid of electoral fraud in
the state of Guerrero in 1999 in order to ensure that the regime
that supports the regional narco-bosses remains in power. And
it was a Canadian company -- Boise Cascade -- behind the deforesting
project that Montiel and Cabrera were persecuted for opposing.

Montiel calls
for government action to "require those responsible for
the destruction" to rebuild the forests and provide basic
equipment to poor farmers so they can dedicate themselves to
raising cattle instead of pillaging trees for lumber.

"Instead
of supporting them with weapons and permits to carry them, or
permits for organizing armed units...they should show their good
faith and try to improve our lives, because remember: whoever
kills a lot of people is committing genocide, and whoever kills
a lot of trees commits ecocide. The two crimes are very similar
and they are being committed at the same time, because each tree
they cut down is like an exploding bomb and the springs disappear,
the sea rises, and along with deforestation and burning, the
flora dies, that is, they kill the ecosystem and our soils erode
and each day they become less fertile and the campesino loses;
the rays of the son become hotter, as if they were lower down,
as if they had new batteries.

"That
is why I invite everybody to share the water we have to drink
and the food produced by the earth, let us look at it is if it
were yours, not to destroy, but to build and to demand respect
for our heritage. Let us become aware, because it's for the good
of your children, your grandchildren, and all the generations;
since we are only passing through, at least we can leave them
some pure air to breathe."

"This
is the respectful wish of your friend,

--Rodolfo
Montiel Flores

The
full text of Montiel's letter can be found, with more information
about his case, on the Goldman Foundation's web site (click here)